Hot Story

Jennifer Rinehart, an MVision veteran who focused on first-time funds, is launching Acalyx Advisors in New York City with at least three other colleagues from her previous employer, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Top News & Analysis

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System committed more than $1.4 billion to private equity during the second half of 2014, according to a Pension Consulting Alliance report included in the retirement system’s April 3 meeting materials.

KRG Capital Partners is launching a $500 million fundraising effort behind KRG Capital Fund V, after some fresh exits, along with several personnel changes in the eight years since its predecessor fund drew in $2 billion.

The New Jersey State Ethics Commission dismissed pay-to-play allegations by the AFL-CIO against Robert Grady, stemming from his term as chairman of the New Jersey State Investment Council, according to the panel.

The SEC accused Lynn Tilton and her firm Patriarch Partners of fraud Monday, alleging the firm and its outspoken founder misled investors by assigning false valuations to loans held by three of its CLO funds.

Jennifer Rinehart, an MVision veteran who focused on first-time funds, is launching Acalyx Advisors in New York City with at least three other colleagues from her previous employer, according to her LinkedIn profile.

KKR’s decision to finance its acquisition of British rail ticket website thetrainline.com with a 275 million pound ($409.48 million) loan provided by a club of 12 lenders shows the changes afoot in European middle-market lending as multiplying loan providers reduces the traditional need to syndicate loans widely, Thomson Reuters Loan Pricing Corp reported.

Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System’s private equity portfolio distributed a little more than $30 million in its last fiscal year, about 24 percent less than it received from distributions in the prior fiscal year, according to retirement system documents.

A lot of portfolio companies are showing their age, according to PitchBook research on about 7,800 U.S.-based portfolio companies. True, a shade over half of the deals date from within the past five years. But more than a third date from the 2005-2009 period, and more than 10 percent are even older.

It’s getting harder and harder to find good deals. So once sponsors do find companies they like they are holding on to them for longer than in the past. Six years was the median hold period for U.S. portfolio companies last year among nearly 7,800 looked at by data provider PitchBook.

Private equity veteran Brooks Zug said high purchase price multiples in the face of “enormous competition” for deals may limit the returns from vintage 2015 top-quartile funds to a less-than-dazzling net IRR of about 15 percent.

Several major limited partners finalized plans to ramp up their commitment pacing in 2015 recently, setting the stage for another banner year for fundraising. But with general partners coming off the strongest fundraising year since 2008, a fresh outpouring of commitments could push dry powder levels to uncomfortable heights.

Fresh Capital

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System committed more than $1.4 billion to private equity during the second half of 2014, according to a Pension Consulting Alliance report included in the retirement system’s April 3 meeting materials.

Leveraged Loans

KKR’s decision to finance its acquisition of British rail ticket website thetrainline.com with a 275 million pound ($409.48 million) loan provided by a club of 12 lenders shows the changes afoot in European middle-market lending as multiplying loan providers reduces the traditional need to syndicate loans widely, Thomson Reuters Loan Pricing Corp reported.

Market Intelligence

The private equity markets continued to cruise in 2015 as deal-making and fundraising both kept charging ahead toward the end of the first quarter. Over the past two weeks, deals done by U.S.-based buyout and mezzanine firms have added nearly $11 billion to the year-to-date total. As it currently sits, the 2015 sum is about $13 billion ahead of where it was at this point in time last year.

Inside the Deal

Freescale Semiconductors’ private equity sponsors will barely make money on the company’s sale to NXP Semiconductors NV for $16.7 billion. But considering Freescale’s troubled history, sources close to the deal consider that an accomplishment.

From the Editor

A high-profile sexual discrimination trial happening right now pitting Ellen Pao against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has turned a spotlight on what many believe is a culture of sexism in Silicon Valley.